The Time Bubble

I think we must get better quality electricity up here on Kingsmere than we did at Chapel Street, as I have noticed something very unusual this year whilst heating up my mince pies. At the old house, in order to get my mince pies to the optimum temperature - nice and hot but not enough to burn my tongue, I used to have to do them for about 21 seconds in the microwave. Here, 15 seconds is more than enough to nuke them and I have burnt the aforementioned tongue on more than one occasion in recent weeks. Now on to the mince pies. As I believe I mentioned on Facebook, I have a free hand in this house to consume as many mince pies as I like. This is because none of the other gannets around here, who eat everything else in sight, like them. Therefore I have had free rein to sample a few different ones to see what's best this year. It's important to do this every year, as I reckon they change the recipes every year. It's a bit like drinking fine wines. The 2016 vintage may...

It falls in every Christmas movie you've ever seen, is in every TV Christmas special and advert. It's all over Christmas cards. We sing songs about it and even spray fake stuff all over the windows. But as I approach my 47th Christmas, there is one burning and ever more desperate question on my lips. Where the **** is the snow? A ridiculously over optimistic Christmas card scene Quite honestly, I have never ever seen what I would class as a White Christmas. I don't know what you call a White Christmas but I don't agree with the bookies definition, which is a single snowflake falling on the roof of the weather centre in London on Christmas Day. Sorry, one snowflake does not a Snowman make. A few bits of left over grey slush by the side of the road from a snowfall a few days earlier also doesn't count. For me, a proper White Christmas, like the ones you get in the movies, happens when snow starts falling after it gets dark on Christmas Eve so you wake u...

As Christmas is almost here, I thought that you might enjoy a sneak preview from my latest time travel novel, Rock Bottom, which is set during the festive season. I must make one small disclaimer. Although I have now completed the novel and been over it several times, this snippet is not quite the final version. The final draft is currently with the editor and proofreader, therefore please forgive me if you find any grammatical errors or typos in the sample below. These will be corrected before the final version is released. This is the opening chapter, which properly introduces the lead character of Kay, who previously had a minor role in my novel, Midlife Crisis. As you'll see. she is somewhat down on her luck, hence the title of Rock Bottom. All I can say is, things do get better as the book progresses! Enjoy, and Merry Christmas! Chapter One December 2018 Kay was so drunk that she practically fell out of the front door of the pub. Just about managing to sta...

Imagine if a friendly angel popped into your life and offered you the chance to go back and relive any six days of your life over again. There's a catch - you can't do anything to change history. So it's no good going back to last Saturday and picking the winning lottery numbers. Which days would you choose? You could go back and spend a day with a much loved, deceased family member and spend one last day with them. You could go back and relive a special moment in your life - your wedding day, the birth of a child, your first kiss. You could spend a hedonistic day, eating, drinking and indulging your every whim, knowing there would never be any consequences. Or  you could do what Richard Kent did in the first book in my new series and go back to get revenge on your evil boss by shoving the head of a large rubber dinosaur up his arse! Such is the premise of my new Second Chances series of books, featuring characters and situations from the original Time Bubble ...

What an amazing summer it has been. Not just in terms of the weather or the things I've done and places I've been - but in the way that I've done them. I've broken out of an early middle-aged rut which was in serious danger of developing into terminal couch potato syndrome into a new outdoors lifestyle. How has this happened? Well a number of reasons really. Just moving to Kingsmere was a start. The open air and space made a huge difference. An increasingly positive mental attitude also helped. And I could name any number of other little things. Things like the kids both learning to ride their bikes without stabilisers and their growing independence - all of these things make a huge difference. There are other things too. I haven't been to the gym for years - it's impractical when looking after children full time which in itself is also very exhausting. Now we have the outside gyms on Kingsmere - perfect for me! I can go down there with the kids on our bik...

One of the bad things about holidays in the British Isles is that generally the weather tends to be crap. You head off to a nice seaside resort dreaming of gorgeous sunny days on beaches, but rarely does it turn out that way. To summarise: The dream The reality Once again, this is how it has turned out this week. Why oh why must the British weather always tempt me in this way? Chuck a 30+ degree heatwave at me a few days before we depart only to replace it with 17c, cloud and rain as soon as we arrive wherever we are going. Still, it's not all bad. It hasn't been as bad as the picture above to be honest, just not warm enough to spend days on the beach. We did manage an hour or two on Monday afternoon, when the kids enjoyed swimming in one of two natural swimming pools that forms on the south beach when the tide goes out. Tomorrow morning looks cloudy but dry, so we are determined to go down and build a few sandcastles. Timing is everything when it comes to sandcas...

In a shock announcement today, the next actor to play Doctor Who was revealed at a hastily assembled press conference at a secret location in Wales. A spokesman claiming to be from the show said "Rather than go through all the speculation that normally follows a lead actor announcing that they are leaving the role, we thought we would get the new man on board before Peter Capaldi actually leaves. As let's face it, he's coming up for his third series and bound to quit soon, just like all the others do just as we are starting to get used to them." The new actor was truly a surprise, as he is better known as a novelist than an actor. Oxford born Jason Ayres, 46, rebuffed claims that he had no acting experience at the conference, listing a number of TV and film appearances over the years. We checked him out on IMDB and found that he had played the following illustrious roles: Man in Pub - Eastenders (2 episodes) - 2015 Man in Kebab Shop - Emmerdale Farm - 2013 F...

It's the first week of the summer holidays and I'm writing to you from Tenby, here in the south-west corner of Wales. And what a lovely little spot it is too. This isn't my first visit here. I stayed here in 1975, a trip I have some vague early memories of. I also stayed here in 1992 with my then girlfriend, but oddly, I can't remember a single thing about that holiday or the town itself. That's very odd for me as I have a pretty photographic memory and can recall the finer details of many of my other trips. Yet Tenby in 1992 has somehow erased itself from my hard drive. Where I stayed, where I ate, even what I did remains a complete blank. I can only assume that being 22 I must have spent the whole week drinking and lost the memories because of it. It is a bit worrying that entire chunks of my past can simply disappear like this, though. If only I had had a blog then, I could have written it all down for posterity. Never mind, we'll just have to start again...

This weekend's British Grand Prix at Silverstone could be the last at the venue if those at the head of the sport get their way. It has long been no secret that F1 supremo, Bernie Ecclestone covets holding a race around the streets of London. However the logistics of staging such an event have proved insurmountable thus far. There were a few glorified electric go-karts trundling around Battersea Park last weekend in the Formula E race, but that just doesn't cut the mustard with die-hard petrol heads. Some Grand Prix cars having a race. Now we have it on good authority that Bicester is being considered as a possible alternative venue. Our roving correspondent, Gerald Mincen, explains more. "Silverstone is all well and good, but let's face it, it's not the most picturesque venue in the world. At other races you've got everything from medieval castles in the background to nice harbours with yachts and stuff. And what do we have here in Bicester, that a...

"That fat bloke on the cover looks vaguely familiar" writes reader Dave from Shillingford. Indeed, he does. So how did I end up starring on my own book cover? Have I become so carried away with dreams of stardom that my massive ego has got the better of me? Actually, it was more a case of needs must. I shall explain, but first let me introduce you to Daniela. Daniela has been the cover artist for every one of my novels, from The Time Bubble onwards. She lives in Brazil and is one of a stable of artists who produce work for a site called selfpubbookcovers.com. It was on this site that I found the cover that I used for The Time Bubble. Since then I have got to know Daniela, working with her on the design of all my book covers since. I can't rate her highly enough. She seems to instinctively pick up what I'm trying to convey in my books. Here are a few examples of her work for me: The Time Bubble trilogy - cover art by Daniela. My favourite of these is Global ...

Bicester residents were reacting in shock today after plans for an ambitious new HS4 railway line were revealed by a new Government White Paper. Work on the new £20 billion line linking Bicester with Heathrow Airport could begin as early as 2018 if the man behind the scheme, local entrepreneur Gerald Mincen, 46, gets his way. The new line would provide a direct link from Heathrow airport to a new state of the art railway station on the current Gavray Meadows site. Mincen explained “This new line will really put Bicester on the map. We don’t want visiting foreign nationals wasting unnecessary shopping time visiting Buckingham Palace or Stratford-Upon-Avon. Now they can forget about all of that and come straight here in less than half an hour”. Coming soon, to an outlet shopping centre near you. When questioned on how the project was to be financed, Mincen added “We envisage funding the entire project out of Bicester resident’s council tax contributions. Obviously these will...

Here I am, looking at the local council election results and I see that all of the seats have been won with votes in the hundreds, not thousands by the same old party, with a mix of the old faces and some new ones. It matters not who they are, they are all from the same political party. I am not going to say the name of the party as I don't want this blog to appear politically biased, that is not the intent. Yet there are so many issues locally that need addressing. Where are the independent candidates, the ones not aligned to a political party, the ones who will stand up and say "Yes, I'm pissed off about Bicester Village, yes I'm pissed off about all the traffic, yes I'm pissed off about the new warehouses!" I think you already know the answer - they are all on Facebook complaining about it! Then I see voter turnout in the Bicester North and Caversfield ward is 27%. And I think, really? Is this how things are now? Do we sit here on our phones, ranting ...

A new larger Tesco has just opened in Bicester so I thought I would go and have a look. It's the first time I have set foot in a Tesco for some time, so disgruntled have I become by their modus operandi, I need not go into detail - it has been heavily documented in my past scribblings. Maybe they've changed I thought, so I went to have a look round and see what the new store was like. Sadly, I was not impressed. I thought perhaps after their £6.4bn loss last year, they might have learned some lessons (i.e. don't treat your shoppers like mugs), but sadly it's still the same old Tesco. Yes, it's bigger, and yes it's clean and modern but it's still overpriced and full of "special" offers that are not special at all - e.g. Tuc Biscuits - was £1.29 now only £1. SAVE 29p! Yeah, great, but Poundland sell them at two packs for a quid. So your "special" offer is actually double their price. I'm sure plenty of less savvy shoppers will ...

Here's a thing. Such is the way of the world that we're always under pressure to upgrade and improve. We have to have the latest phone, the fastest internet connection and so on. Or do we? Yes, we have come a long way from the early days of the internet when it took half a day to load a page on a 28.8k dial up modem whilst our parents wondered why they couldn't get through to Granny on the phone. But a recent experience has made me wonder, how fast do we need to go? After all. there is no point buying a faster model of a road car that can do a top speed of 140mph rather than the 130mph of the next one down when the speed limit on the motorway in the UK is 90. Sorry, I mean 70. Unless you are planning to drive around the Nurburgring in it, that is. So what about Broadband, how much do we need? Well, when BT Infinity came along a few years ago, like all good technology fans I welcomed it with open arms, ordering at the first opportunity and taking my internet speed up t...